In Things Hoped For

I've been thinking quite a good deal about faith lately. Spurred by a song (not George Michael) I came across on the radio by a band I was always mocked for enjoying in high school by friends. It's called "Take My Hand" by The Kry (aged Canadian rockers; YOU album). The fact that I even heard it on the radio was astounding, seeing as how, 15 years ago when it was written, I never heard it on the radio. My estimation is that some tired DJ at the Christian Radio station here in town pulled a fast one. Either way, at 3:30 in the morning on a Saturday on 5 hours of sleep, that song still resonates deep within me.

There are many instances of faith. There's faith that your first house will be everything you hoped for. There's faith that your favorite NBA team will land one of the top two picks in the upcoming draft. Faith that your baseball team will one day win it all. And, more seriously, there's times when one's faith is tried by unspeakable and inconsolable tragedy. When only faith, the unspoken and unseen comfort and presence of faith, gets one through.

In all these cases, it's a hope in the things not yet come, the evidence of things not seen. Yet it's more than that in the latter case. It actually carries us through those times. Changes how we approach events like that one. There is a fine line between faith and hope. Hope is a good thing to have for sure. Faith is a better thing because you can actually use it here and now. You can let it affect you. You can let it drive you forward. And it's promises bring one joy, however slight, in times of great darkness.

One of the glorious things about faith is the day and moment it is rewarded. Any conception I have of that moment now is but a shadow, the faintest whisper, the slightest breeze. And it is that faith, that hope in things not yet seen, that carries me further up and further in through this life.

"Talk my hand and walk, where I lead."